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Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the…
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Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions (original 2010; edition 2014)

by Rachel Held Evans

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
4682052,430 (4.39)6
Wow, this is a great book. If you have grown up in a very conservative, Fundamentalist church, and have ever had deep questions and doubts, you will likely resonate with Rachel. She comes across as an honest seeker and a sensitive soul. She also, in my opinion, accurately diagnoses the reason that so many young people become turned off to the church. ( )
  bness2 | May 23, 2017 |
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A personal story of how one woman began questioning her Evangelical faith in the inerrancy of the Bible, framed around the idea of evolution. As she discusses the scientific theory of evolution, she also discusses the evolution of her faith away from Biblical inerrancy, and the evolution of religion in general. Just as she needed her faith to evolve through her doubt, she believes fundamental Christianity needs to evolve in order to survive. I really enjoyed her fresh (to me) approach to the subject, and am saddened that her death has deprived us of such a unique voice. ( )
  rumbledethumps | Jun 26, 2023 |
The first of her books, and the only one I hadn't read. Not my favorite of her work (which makes sense for a first book!) but still a fantastic meditation on questions, doubt, and deconstruction of Christian faith. ( )
  MandyPS | May 13, 2023 |
Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions was originally called Evolving in Monkey Town with the same subtitle. The Scopes monkey trial took place in Rachel Held Evans' hometown in 1925 and acts as a neat metaphor for what the book is about: belief, doubt, politics, and fundamentalism. She wrote it after years of wrestling with her conservative evangelical Christian upbringing in the Bible belt and the doubt she experienced as an adult.

Rachel, a pastor's daughter, went to Christian schools and college where she and her classmates were taught to be Christian apologists and debaters, concerned more with winning souls and dunking on nonbelievers than they were about determining what they really believed and if they believed it. Rachel's crisis of faith was relatable, and I felt for her. She also includes some short chapters about other people she knows and their approaches to faith and belief. This book doesn't have a neat ending, but then life and belief don't. This book is all the more poignant because Rachel passed away a couple of years ago.

See the full review, plus the book's trigger warnings, at https://fileundermichellaneous.blogspot.com/2022/05/book-review-faith-unraveled-... ( )
  Mialro | Dec 15, 2022 |
A worthwhile read, although nothing too surprising for anyone who has spent time on Rachel Held Evans' blog. This is, essentially, a version 2.0 of Evolving In Monkey Town, Evans' spiritual autobiography.

For me, the most interesting part of this book is that, in an approximate sort of way, Evans was going through the process of learning what her spiritual worldview would be at the same time I was. She was just a year ahead of me in high school and college and many of the world events that she saw were the same that influenced me. She came from a very different background -- she came from a conservative Christian family in a conservative Christian community; I came from a Christian-by-default family in an area of relatively low religiosity -- but there is still a similarity that contemporaries will often have, regardless of other differences.

I expect that others will appreciate the book for a different reason: to over simplify, Evans' faith crisis came down to dealing with the fact that in her community, Christianity came with a very particular set of beliefs and a fixed political agenda. As she saw more of the world, some of those beliefs and some parts of that agenda became less and less acceptable.

In particular, Evans had to deal with the fact that for people of our generation, the world was getting a lot smaller. She couldn't look upon people from other countries and other religious traditions as the abstract damned. She saw them as individuals, and once that started happening, the assumptions of her upbringing started to unravel.

In the end, Evans decided that she could have both a view of the Bible as God's revelation and throw off some of the more atrocious of her old beliefs. In fact, once she started looking, she found that the Bible presented a much more nuanced picture than what she had been taught.

Overall, a light, entertaining read. ( )
  eri_kars | Jul 10, 2022 |
Such a wonderful read for any person of faith who experiences an upheaval of belief. Such an essential read for friends and family members whose loved ones appear to have "lost their way"--if open to it, they might find an increase of love, compassion, and acceptance for those who question. Believers of all faiths lost an important voice when she died; I'm so glad she wrote as many books as she did in her brief stay on earth, to help shepherd people like me through what it means to have faith. ( )
  ms_rowse | Jan 1, 2022 |
I was able to identify with some aspects of Rachel Held Evans's experiences growing up in the Bible Belt. It was good to hear more about the path of how her faith developed. ( )
  aevaughn | Dec 17, 2020 |
I was under the impression that this would be tackling evolution specifically, but here, it functions as a metaphor for the necessity of present truth in faith: the need to adapt and wrestle with ideas and LISTEN. Held Evans breaks down many "false fundamentals" of faith that are truly necessary, even today. And if you read her newer books, you'll see how she's really adapted over the years. I'm grateful for her wisdom and insight. ( )
  DrFuriosa | Dec 4, 2020 |
Back in 2012 I read a book by Rachel Held Evans entitled: Evolving in Monkey Town. Since then, I've gone into Audible and added all 4 of her books to my library. I choose "Faith Unraveled" to start listening to just before the end of 2019 knowing I would finish it in early 2020 (I finished it this week). I was about 10 minutes into the book when it started to sound familiar. Google to the rescue. Zondervan has renamed "Evolving in Monkey Town" to "Faith Unraveled". It had been 7 years since I'd read "Evolving in Monkey Town" so I kept listening to the retitled edition. Rachel reads the book herself. She does OK, but she is a better writer than narrator.
Goodreads won't let me review this again since I did a review in 2012, but it's easily a 5 star book. Rachel tells us the story of her spiritual journey. The foundation of her journey is asking a LOT of very hard questions about the things she'd been taught growing up in a Christian family and graduating from a Bible College. The questions she asked caused her to struggle deeply with her faith, but eventually she finds answers to some of her questions and learns that having questions is OK. She also changes some of the beliefs she grew up with and emerges with a faith that had unraveled but then been knit back together. I heartily recommend this book. I've asked many of these same questions, and I can vouch for the fact that asking these questions is not welcome in most churches. However, history and the Bible both teach that asking questions is the way to grow while blindly accepting things unquestioned results in a very shallow faith. ( )
  JohnKaess | Jul 23, 2020 |
Evans first book. She begins to question her strict fundamentalist views of the Bible and God after visiting India. She says that questioning faith is now bad, it causes people to grow. ( )
  LindaLeeJacobs | Feb 15, 2020 |
Just Wow. Rachel writes so well. Her turns of phrase, her visual analogies, are so visceral- this is some of the finest modern non-fiction writing I've had the pleasure to read. For instance, "Failure to adapt explains why wooly mammoths didn't survive the end of the Ice Age and why we get pigeon poop stuck on our windshields instead of dodo poop." The way she puts a sentence and an image together is so very evocative.

And Rachel writes *real*. I sense no guile in her, as she writes with humility, criticizing her own past beliefs and present beliefs. And she mirrors my own faith journey- though I haven't really reached anything close to her level of humility. Rachel starts off in a Biblically literal family, evangelical if not fundamentalist. Gradually she realizes that faith is about asking questions, not being right. Through the lenses of evolution, a big topic in her town, and the status of women, a topic dear to her heart, Rachel comes to see that Biblical orthodoxy is not clear precisely so that we can have discussions in community. Despite this, she finds that the adjective "Biblical" is uses primarily as a weapon, to tear down conversation and community, rather than to build faith through questioning.

My faith journey is the same, but Rachel, a decade younger than me, has progressed beyond me. I learn from her, and her words continue to ruminate in my brain. She writes of fundamentalism as "holding so tightly to your beliefs that your fingernails leave imprints on the palm of your hand." They are "So fearful of losing their grip on faith, they squeeze the life out of it." And "When you count each one of your beliefs as absolutely essential, change is never an option. When change is never an option, you have to hope that the world stays exactly as it is so as not to mess with your view of it." Some Christians are "more offended by the idea of everyone going to heaven than by the idea of everyone going to hell." Yup. All true, in my experience. Christians have focused on certain sins, while giving a pass to others. This is certainly not a new observation. Phrasing it as that she sometimes wonders what the world would be like if American Protestants focused on a different sin than homosexuality- that is a novel take that I had not considered before. Rachel's imagination, the foundation of hope, makes this the enticing book that it is.

But what are we to do about this? Can Christianity be saved? Happily, according to Rachel, it already has within it the genesis of salvation. She says, "I'm an evolutionist because I believe that sometimes God uses changes in the environment to pry idols from our grip and teach us something new." "If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that faith can survive just about anything, so long as it's able to evolve." I hadn't realized it before I read her, but yes- that *is* what the Bible talks about when it talks about faith- or itself!

Until she began this journey of self-discovery, and Jesus discovery, she "never realized how important hope is to belief." That is what faith is about. Not facts. Hope. If we're going to be Biblical about it. "We aren't saved by information. We're saved by restored relationship with God." And following Christ is "about living as an incarnation of Jesus, as Jesus lived as an incarnation of God."

There are certainly those who erroneously claim that Rachel is no Christian, or rejects the Bible, or criticizes fundamentalism without praise. But one is allowed to criticize one's own faith and experiences, from the inside. And as for the Bible, it is rather her high view of scripture that demands she takes it seriously. "Womanhood, like the Bible, is far too lovely and mysterious and transcendent to systematize or explain." You can say that the entire Bible needs to be taken literally (and not actually mean it). Or you can praise it in the superlative poetic as Rachel does. As for me and my house, I prefer Rachel's approach. It's more life affirming, and life changing. ( )
  Carosaari | Jul 15, 2019 |
Wow, this is a great book. If you have grown up in a very conservative, Fundamentalist church, and have ever had deep questions and doubts, you will likely resonate with Rachel. She comes across as an honest seeker and a sensitive soul. She also, in my opinion, accurately diagnoses the reason that so many young people become turned off to the church. ( )
  bness2 | May 23, 2017 |
I feel a little late to the party with this one. I discovered Rachel Held Evans this past year when I stumbled on to her blog. And then I have only been an occasional reader. This is one of those 'fundamentalist kid becomes more broadminded and questions the narrowness of the faith they were taught.' Reminded me a bit of Matthew Paul Turner's Churched in that sense. Although Rachel's questions stem from her questioning mind and heartfelt compassion for those who are suffering. I liked this book a lot, in part because my own story is similar in places (though my story wouldn't make as good of a book). I really appreciated her openness and the way she eschews easy answers that ultimately seem to demean the love of God. ( )
  Jamichuk | May 22, 2017 |
Really interesting, insightful memoir about questioning conservative Christian values. But really
Only nominally related to scopes trial ( )
  sirk.bronstad | Feb 16, 2017 |
Very good reflections on a developing faith. ( )
  mrklingon | Jan 2, 2015 |
Evans' memoirs of her early years growing up in Christianity strike a chord with those who are seeking and questioning their faith. Her stories of struggling with various preconceived fundamentals of faith are inspiring yet common. Ultimately her message is that faith is constantly changing and that doubts are a natural product of faith, which serve to mould and change our faith so that it may be stronger. ( )
  xuebi | May 30, 2014 |
Even if I don't believe we see eye to eye on some of the particulars I do appreciate the story and attitude of the book. ( )
  swampygirl | Dec 9, 2013 |
Rachel Held Evans is not afraid to ask the hard questions. She is not afraid to have no solid answers. An honest account of her personal struggle with faith and fundamentalism. A quick, easy read but may require rereading. Well worth the time. Quotes" "I believe that the best way to reclaim the gospel in times of change is not to cling more tightly to our convictions but to hold them with an open hand." "Evolution means letting go of our false fundamentals so that God can get into those shadowy places we're not sure we want him to be. It means being okay with being wrong, okay with not having all the answers, okay with never being finished." "If salvation is available only to Christians, then the gospel isn't good news at all." ( )
  KCummingsPipes | Oct 12, 2011 |
4 stars. ( )
  YoungGeekyLibrarian | Mar 8, 2011 |
This is a very interesting book in which the auhor, Rachel Held Evans describes her journey from a rock solid, unquestioning fundamentalist faith to one where she is no longer afraid of doubts and not knowing all the answers. This journey is set against the backdrop of growing up in "monkey town" Dayton Tennessee, which was the site of the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial in the 1920s and remains a bastion of fundamentalism to this day.

Rachel raises a lot of challenges questions and observations in her anecdotal style, but despite her questions she still presents a vibrant, passionate faith, robust in the face of doubts - just robust in a different way to what she might have imagined as a student. She makes some very incisve observations as to how the whole field of apologetics seems to be missing the point in many ways. A couple of quotes : "most of our peers were receptive to spiritual things... they weren't searching for historical evidence in support of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. They were searching for some signs of life among his followers... Most weren't looking for a faith that provided all the answers; they were looking for one in which they were free to ask questions." (p203-204) If you can appreciate the message in those quotes, then I think you will appreciate this book. ( )
  baggas | Nov 29, 2010 |
What happened to the millions of Holocaust victims immediately after their death? Did God consign them to eternal torture for not believing in his Son?

If that question doesn’t bother you, then don’t bother with this book. If you do wrestle with it, Evan’s memoir will remind you that you’re not the only person on this journey.

Evolving in Monkey Town is the story of Evan’s spiritual journey from a fundamentalist with all the correct answers to an honest believer. If you were raised in a fundamentalist setting, this book will resonate. Evans has a knack for describing the absurdities of fundamentalism with grace and plenty of humour.

I should warn you that this book will make you think through issues many of us prefer to leave buried, such as the fate of people who have never heard of Jesus. The challenge, however, is well worth accepting for any believer looking to grow up. Loving God with all our heart as well as our mind demands nothing less. ( )
1 vote StephenBarkley | Sep 30, 2010 |
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